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Posts by Martin
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There is not necessarily great pleasure over time for a scientist. Paul Ehrenfest contributed to quantum theory but felt that peers made greater discoveries around the same time and commited suicide.
In other cases, peers have dismissed a revolutionary new theory, even with ad-hominem. Accolades which come in only posthumously are too late. Examples of this are Ludwig Boltzmann and Alfred Wegener (geologist, but close enough). In Boltzmann's case, the hostility by peers probably contributed to his suicide. Dan Shechtman's discovery of quasicrystals was initially rejected, even by his boss, such that Dan Shechtman had to leave his research group and was the target of ridicule, e.g. Linus Pauling's infamous ad-hominem "There are no quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists". Luckily, Dan Shechtman is not a "snowflake" like Boltzmann and Ehrenfest may appear to have been and got eventually the accolades, including the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. -
Welcome Ontologix!
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"Engaging In Discovery" should be changed to "Making a Discovery" or similar because the path to a discovery is more or less painful, as expressed in quotes attributed to Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein on the ratio of inspiration to perspiration. We can skip the "Great" because the pleasure I had with my small discoveries was certainly not less than the great physicists had with their great ones, in analogy to the "Great Physicist" and the lion.
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Welcome back JMGuimas!
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Welcome O2x Ohio!
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Welcome Ernesto.Sun!
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Welcome Hubblefanboy!
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Welcome ZarathustrasGarden!
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Welcome Sam_Qwerty!
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Welcome Simteau!
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The worst part of that AI overview is that the AI misrepresents our position in a way that it appears to contradict Epicurus' philosophy. A reader with some familiarity with Epicurus but not us is likely to dismiss epicureanfriends.com.
This shows that attempts to countercheck AI by letting it contrast different positions may still lead to misleading nonsense. You already need to be an expert to make good use of AI. -
Welcome DistantLaughter!
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Grok misclassified Sabine Hossenfelder. Her insistence on hard determinism makes her the most extreme physicalist among those listed.
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Response to Bryan's comment #19:
Quote"A lot of data has been automatically bent to fit incorrect assumptions."
No!
Quote"Every year there are many good students, potential physicists, who do not accept the current model and therefore have been turned away from the priesthood."
I did not encounter such students while I studied physics in Cologne. So, the many good is "exaggerated" if not outright wrong. Being able to apply established models to solve simple problems usually assures graduation. You do not have to accept the current model as "true" or adequate to graduate.
In Germany, more than half of the students who start studying physics give up, mostly because they are just bridging the time until getting accepted for another subject or at another university. The second most common reason is that the mathematics courses in the first year, i.e. just mathematics as a tool set to be mastered without reference to physics, is too difficult for them. I never heard of disagreement with the "current model" as a reason.Quote"Real atoms are too small for machines to detect, and what looks like the bending of space is really just the effect of “oceans” of these invisible atoms and their wakes."
No! Electrons and photons are adequately described as elementary particles, i.e. "atoms" in Epicurus' sense, and can be detected by our equipment. "Invisible atoms and their wakes" sounds more like Heraclitus' flux than Epicurus' atomism.
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Epicurus' seems to have conceived the "atoms" (i.e. the elementary particles in today's language) as hard bodies, which has been refuted by modern physics. Therefore, Epicurus' inferences from that hardness are not sound. This concerns in particular the interaction between atoms and the formation of compounds. Nevertheless, modern physics does describe interaction between atoms and the formation of compounds.
Although the analogy between today's physics and Heraclitus’ flux might appear stronger than between today's physics and Epicurus' hard atoms under that aspect, Heraclitus' flux is useless for meaningful modelling of reality whereas Epicurus' hard atoms can still be used for simplistic starter models to explain some phenomena. -
Welcome David!
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On a similar note, forest cemeteries have become popular in Germany in recent decades. My siblings fed the ashes of our mother to a tree in such a forest cemetery. The urn was buried with those of several others around that tree.
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Welcome Sam!
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Welcome Ceiltechbladhm
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Finding Things At EpicureanFriends.com
What's the best strategy for finding things on EpicureanFriends.com? Here's a suggested search strategy:
- First, familiarize yourself with the list of forums. The best way to find threads related to a particular topic is to look in the relevant forum. Over the years most people have tried to start threads according to forum topic, and we regularly move threads from our "general discussion" area over to forums with more descriptive titles.
- Use the "Search" facility at the top right of every page. Note that the search box asks you what section of the forum you'd like to search. If you don't know, select "Everywhere." Also check the "Search Assistance" page.
- Use the "Tag" facility, starting with the "Key Tags By Topic" in the right hand navigation pane, or using the "Search By Tag" page, or the "Tag Overview" page which contains a list of all tags alphabetically. We curate the available tags to keep them to a manageable number that is descriptive of frequently-searched topics.